Sophie Hahn qualifies in record time for the T38 200m

Sophie Hahn has qualified in record time for the 200m T38 finals in her senior debut at the Lyon IPC Athletics World Championships.

The 16-year-old clocked a championship record with her time of 27.56 seconds, forcing the obvious race favourite and triple gold medalist at London 2012, Margarita Goncharova, to settle for second place.

The Russian athlete took silver in the event at the Olympics last year, losing out to gold medalist, Chen Junfei. The reigning Olympic champion ran in the other semi-final, narrowly losing out to the 17-year-old rising star, Veronica Hipolito.

However, it was Sophie Hahn who caused the greatest upset of the day, tearing away from her rivals to qualify for the finals with the fastest time on the board.

Only just setting out on her professional career and with years of development to come, Junfei's world record of 27.39 seconds seems well within reach for the 16-year-old.

However, Hahn isn't the only athlete set for a bright future in the sport. Hipolito, qualifying with a time of 27.95 seconds, is a force to be reckoned with in the T38 class.

The Brazilian teenager has broken national records in the 100m, 200m and Long Jump after only taking up Paralympic sports last year following a stroke.

The British Paralympics head coach Paula Dunn clearly has faith in Sophie Hahn and her fellow athletes. Upon releasing the names of the selected sportsmen and women headed for Lyon, Dunn said: "There's an exciting blend of young talent and experienced athletes in the team and hopefully this is the building block for 2016."

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DISCLAIMER

This article has been written by a member of the GiveMeSport Writing Academy and does not represent the views of
GiveMeSport.com or SportsNewMedia. The views and opinions expressed are solely that of the author credited at the top of this article.
GiveMeSport.com and SportsNewMedia do not take any responsibility for the content of its contributors.

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